they'd rather lose the income than gain the bad press. it's a smart move.
anyway how many can they be selling if we're so deep in the alleged recession.
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Online Apple Store is Out of iPhones
- Thread starter Blakely028
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they'd rather lose the income than gain the bad press. it's a smart move.
anyway how many can they be selling if we're so deep in the alleged recession.
For the record: At least in Germany, it's always been that way: You were never able to order the iPhone via Apple, you always had to use either T-Mobile's website or go to one of their stores.
And as far as availability is concerned: The subsidized sale for the 8 GB model is still going on (and scheduled to end June 30th) while the 16 GB model is now also available for online purchase, although without any subsidies. (For a couple of weeks, you could only order it via their hotline and not via web.) No "out of stock" notices anywhere.
Jens
I don't understand why they would just stop having them though...did they do this when they came out with new iPod models? 
I agree. I've been looking at my Calendar, and it shapes up like this...
1. It was about this time last year Apple announced that the device was FCC approved.
2. It was also this time Apple started putting out teaser info (starting with the FCC, leading up to more information on just about a weekly basis, eventually ending up with the videos in the few weeks before launch).
3. You'd want to cut off sales before far in advance of the 14 day window, and by natural attrition (being out of stock). People just outside the 14 day window would raise holy hell - even if it were just the announcement. Please note we are exactly one month from Steve's keynote at WWDC.
However, six weeks is not only a very long time to go without iPhone sales, its nearly half of a quarter, and would hurt Apple's bottom line. So at this point, we know Apple better have a damn good reason come mid-July to explain to the shareholders why the units sold in this quarter were down so much and why they chose to cut off sales so early (because in reality they only sold phones 7 weeks out of the 13 week quarter).
I think we'll see an Apple Special Event on May 28th (Wednesday - not Tuesday because the Monday of that week is Memorial Day in the US). Steve will come out on stage and talk about how great the iPhone is doing, he'll go over numbers, possibly even introduce the new (slightly thinner and cooler) MacBook and MacBook Pro lineups (to ship early/mid June with the Montevina chipset). Then the big announcement of the 3G iPhone.
We might even be privilidged to see a iPhone Nano. The fact that their discontinuing the current EDGE iPhone means that the new lineup will be completely 3G, and perhaps we see a smaller phone (the one that was rumored a while ago) that will be EDGE or just UMTS (not HSDPA).
At WWDC, we'll see the final SDK release before the release of the 3G iPhone and 2.0 software. No more "beta" tag on the SDK and developers will have a little over 3 weeks to prepare their application for sale on the night of June 27th when the 2.0 firmware goes live.
That's strange, now its unavailable again. There must have been something wrong with my computer...
I agree. They could announce a new iPhone(s) soon.
And have a release date around WWDC or something like that.
Generate a void
Apple is not the only one to do this:
Before the Star Wars Special Edition movies came out the original movies were pulled out of even rental shops.
Disney does this too. They make certain titles unavailable even on DVD after a certain period of time and then re-release them again.
Making iPhones unavailable even a month before release is a VERY good move. This gives the current owners a chance to sell their iPhones to people who can't wait for a new one for a higher price than they normally would because of decreased supply (and increased demand), in preparation for buying the latest iPhone.
Apple is not the only one to do this:
Before the Star Wars Special Edition movies came out the original movies were pulled out of even rental shops.
Disney does this too. They make certain titles unavailable even on DVD after a certain period of time and then re-release them again.
Making iPhones unavailable even a month before release is a VERY good move. This gives the current owners a chance to sell their iPhones to people who can't wait for a new one for a higher price than they normally would because of decreased supply (and increased demand), in preparation for buying the latest iPhone.
Ok I just got off the phone with apple, take this with a grain of salt, but the first guy went through the normal apple BS of they dont have any information and when I asked when its going to be available, he did the whole I cant comment on future products. The only thing I asked him was I wanted to buy an iphone, never asked him if a new one is coming out, so I thought that was weird that he would mention a future product.
Called again and the second guy said the same thing, and when I asked him how long this will last he was like "it shouldnt take more than a day to do the UPDATES" then he quickly caught himself and said its probably a technical or supply issue.
So who knows.
Called again and the second guy said the same thing, and when I asked him how long this will last he was like "it shouldnt take more than a day to do the UPDATES" then he quickly caught himself and said its probably a technical or supply issue.
So who knows.
Good idea! never thought of this supply VS demand issue from this development.
But what about the remaining months in our contract? We can put the simcard into iphone 2, but we won't be getting 3G.
any way/idea around that issue? I can only hope O2 will allow existing users to upgrade to use 3G speed.
Total Imagination Going Bonkers: They might want to have the 3G iPhone out for a while so that we are accustomed to it before WWDC. I would guess that they might focus on all of the cool apps that have been developed and Launch the Apps Store the same day as WWDC.
This makes sense because if they release the iPhone on the same day that apps are available they will not sell many apps because everyone just spent their monthly car payment on a phone.
Apple is about maximizing every sale and this would be a proper scenario to make that happen.
This makes sense because if they release the iPhone on the same day that apps are available they will not sell many apps because everyone just spent their monthly car payment on a phone.
Apple is about maximizing every sale and this would be a proper scenario to make that happen.
A good thought. If they release iPhone 2 and the App Store in the same day, as well as having consumers sign up for 2 year contracts, it would seem way too much to ask a consumer to purchase at once. Besides, those stimulus checks are getting well spread out by now, and who wants to hold onto it for another month?
It might be a good move for you since youll be selling your iphone for a high price. How does this benefit apple? If they released the new iphone today, you would buy the new one, and so would that person that couldnt wait.
There is no way to justify a one month selling hiatus as a good business move.
Absolutely not. Why on God's green earth would you launch the App Store when the developers are all OUT OF TOWN at a conference. Yea, the developer at WWDC would have to scramble to get their product ready and wont be attending classes the next few days but rather getting their **** together to launch their app and then support it (fix bugs, etc).
No. This will not happen.
Whats BS? What i said or what they told me? I just repeated what they told me when i called. As i said take it with a grain of salt since they probably know as much as we do.
To all the people thinking Apple is doing this to prevent angry iPhone users 1 month ahead of an announcement, your arguement just doesn't make sense.
Does Apple do this before Laptop refreshes? No they don't. Apple doesn't care about the people who buy a laptop that ends up outside the 14 days exchange window . So, why would the iPhone merit *special* treatment?
If anything, I would think this unavailability means an announcement or refresh before the June meeting. Though, I don't expect it to happen outside a Jobs keynote.
Does Apple do this before Laptop refreshes? No they don't. Apple doesn't care about the people who buy a laptop that ends up outside the 14 days exchange window . So, why would the iPhone merit *special* treatment?
If anything, I would think this unavailability means an announcement or refresh before the June meeting. Though, I don't expect it to happen outside a Jobs keynote.
I called Apple because I want to buy an iPhone for my step daughter for Graduation. I was told, "Yes the phone is unavailable" I pressed as to why since it did not make very good business sense to advertise such a popular phone and not have them available. The rep stated again "I am sorry but the phone is unavailable and we are sorry for your inconvenience" I also tried to pry out when I could order the phone or when they would have them available for purchase, again the response was the same. I asked if I should go to the Apple store in my area and the rep said I should call to make sure they have phones in stock. They are pretty tight lipped about what's going on.